Book contents
- Arming Black Consciousness
- African Studies Series
- Arming Black Consciousness
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 African Decolonisation, Armed Struggle and Black Power, 1958–1973
- 2 ‘Our Struggle Calls for the Involvement of the Entire Black Community’
- 3 Forging a Guerrilla Army, 1973–1976
- 4 Azanian Black Nationalist Guerrillas: 1976–1993
- 5 ‘Sharpening the Spear’
- 6 Contributions, Absorptions and Repressions of Black Consciousness in MK, 1978–1994
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- African Studies Series
5 - ‘Sharpening the Spear’
Black Consciousness in MK, 1972–1981
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2023
- Arming Black Consciousness
- African Studies Series
- Arming Black Consciousness
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 African Decolonisation, Armed Struggle and Black Power, 1958–1973
- 2 ‘Our Struggle Calls for the Involvement of the Entire Black Community’
- 3 Forging a Guerrilla Army, 1973–1976
- 4 Azanian Black Nationalist Guerrillas: 1976–1993
- 5 ‘Sharpening the Spear’
- 6 Contributions, Absorptions and Repressions of Black Consciousness in MK, 1978–1994
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- African Studies Series
Summary
Chapter 5 delves into the presence of Black Consciousness as a powerful current of thought and praxis inside Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK). The period from 1977 to 1981 is generally agreed upon by scholars and activists as one in which MK was able to assert itself as the leading South African liberation movement. It was also clearly recognized that Soweto generation recruits who came to MK during the uprising were fundamental to this transformation. However, the details on how this generation brought its Black Consciousness politics into the armed wing of the ANC have been underemphasized. The Soweto generation recruits who dominated the rank-and-file and mid-level commanders in the immediate years after 1976 carried a politics of Black Consciousness into MK which temporarily enabled it to become a more radical organization. Building on Stephen Davis’s conception of Novo Catengue and other camps in Angola as spaces of both repression and the positive foundation of the newly re-forged MK, this chapter will attempt to interrogate the role Black Consciousness played within this space.
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- Information
- Arming Black ConsciousnessThe Azanian Black Nationalist Tradition and South Africa's Armed Struggle, pp. 175 - 206Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023